No Twitter or Facebook for English cricketers

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is planning to ban English cricketers from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook while on national duty.

File photo of players of England Cricket team during a Test match against Pakistan in Nottingham.

"England's cricketers are facing a ban from social networking websites Twitter and Facebook," a daily newspaper report said on Sunday.

England players such as Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Kevin Pietersen and Steven Finn have been very active on social networking site Twitter.com and share nearly 150,000 followers among them.

Although the cricketers consider it as a harmless diversion, this of-field activity has not gone down well with the team management, which fears that the players may slip dressing room secrets to the public.

"The England management, supported by captain Andrew Strauss, seem determined to write a clause in the new ECB contracts for 2010-11 banning players from tweeting while on England duty," the report said.

The England team management was left red-faced when former under-19 captain Azeem Rafiq was found guilty of injudicious messaging after he called coach John Abrahams a 'useless ******' in one of his tweets on being axed from the side against Sri Lanka.

He was soon fined and banned for one month from all cricket.

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